


Even the sky knows how to fall (silently)

by akaashook



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings Realization, Getting to Know Each Other, I Don't Even Know, Insomniac Miya Atsumu, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Melancholy, POV Alternating, Pining Miya Atsumu, UshiSaku, some art references, they're gay and stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaashook/pseuds/akaashook
Summary: And if the pain was unbearable, Atsumu endured it. Because it was all his fault. Because he was the one who pushed Sakusa to confess his feelings to Ushijima. Because he let himself fall when he had the chance to step back and not forward.And if he kept going on like that, maybe he'd reach the breaking point. And his heart would no longer be the problem.Why Sakusa? When? How?Atsumu had started to wonder. He had taken that couch of theirs and reduced it to its most microscopic particles. He had decomposed it into pieces, into molecules, into atoms. He needed to understand at what point the road he had chosen had begun to curve, an inch at a time, imperceptible for someone who, like Atsumu, only knows how to look ahead. In that moment more than ever he needed those memories so dear to his old captain, Kita Shinsuke.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 103
Kudos: 719





	Even the sky knows how to fall (silently)

**Author's Note:**

> Sakuatsu really be living in my brain 24/7, I hate it here.  
> Basically I'm back with this new fic: this time I figured I wanted to express a feeling of melancholy and deep silence.  
> This is actually pretty different from my other works, but I hope you enjoy!!!
> 
> (+++ sorry Ushijima if I didn't make you justice, ily)
> 
> +++ sorry if my English is not on point, but it's not my first language

Sakusa had just returned to the Black Jackals dorm, it was about two in the morning and his head was throbbing so much that he could feel his heart beat through his temples.  
  
He had been to a family dinner at Komori’s house. His aunt had invited him to stay the night, but Sakusa had to go to the gym in less than eight hours for morning practice and didn't want to risk being late, he hated being late. He also preferred to sleep in the arms of his clean blankets, on his comfortable and familiar bed, in his cozy room.  
  
Once he was back in what could be called his home, he found himself contemplating the darkness. He was tired, he was really really tired, but he wasn't ready to cross the door that separated him from his little kingdom, the door that separated the real world from the dream world. Especially with his pulsating head that, in that moment, was louder than Inarizaki's orchestra.  
  
Maybe he was overreacting, but he wasn’t in the mood to think straight that night. He turned on the light and set off for the small common kitchen, eager for a mug of something, anything, hot. He put a small pot to boil and looked around looking for the television remote control.  
  
Finding it had never been an easy task ever since Bokuto moved to the dormitory, that guy had the bad habit (or the incredible ability) to never put it back in its place: once the team (or the part of the team that lived in that building) had to scour every corner of every room to discover where it was, and after about twenty minutes, Inunaki had located it right in Bokuto’s duffel bag.  
  
This time Sakusa was lucky, because it was right on the coffee table in front of the couch. Maybe watching TV wasn’t the best choice to make his headache go away, but it was a good way to get a distraction. The lost hours of sleep would have been a problem for next day's Sakusa.  
  
He found a replay of an old Adlers' game against Raijin, lowered the volume so as not to risk waking anyone, took his mug of chamomile and was about to abandon himself to the soft embrace of the couch when he noticed someone had left a duvet on it, it looked like a little mountain of heat. It was a pretty cold day. He didn’t know who put it there, but he thanked them.  
  
He took one of its corners and…  
  
Under the duvet there was a person.  
  
The most annoying one among his teammates.  
  
Miya Atsumu.  
  
Sakusa didn’t scream. He never did. And he refrained from jumping backwards just because he didn’t want to spill his drink, either on the ground or on himself.  
  
"Omi-kun?" He whispered with an expression halfway between embarrassment, confusion and dizziness because of the sudden brightness. And took off one of his earphones.  
  
"Do I want to know what you’re doing here in the middle of the night?"  
  
"I don’t know, Omi, d'ya want it?" Atsumu grinned at him.  
  
Sakusa rolled his eyes and told him "Make room"  
  
Atsumu lifted his legs so that he could occupy only half of the couch. Sakusa sat down.  
  
Atsumu turned to look at him, then passed a hand through his already messy hair and said "I needed some air"  
  
This time it was Sakusa who stared at him "And were you looking for air under a duvet?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.  
  
"It’s comfortable" he stated as if it explained everything.  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"Insomnia"  
  
"Oh"  
  
Only then did Sakusa take the time to observe him: his expression was neutral, no light to illuminate his tired, almost absent eyes, surrounded by purple circles. They weren't completely marked, but enough to be noticed from Sakusa's position, one meter away from him. On his head he had a crown of dyed blond threads, all ruffled and knotted. Even his skin seemed to have taken on a paler shade.  
  
It was weird to see Atsumu without his usual colors.  
  
"Are you sick?" he asked.  
  
"No, Omi-kun"  
  
For some mysterious reason Sakusa believed him. And that feeling of discomfort dissipated when the setter turned his attention to the TV and smiled feebly.  
  
"Why are ya here, Omi-kun?"  
  
There are many types of nights: those spent with a group of friends, celebrating everything and nothing until the early hours of the morning, full of lights, colors, deafening noises; the quiet ones during which people like to be alone with their thoughts, their projects, in which every weight seems to slide off your shoulders for a few hours and, finally, breathing goes back to being something simple, natural; those spent in the company of someone you love, talking about the more and the less, or not talking at all. The latter had always transmitted Sakusa a slight sense of melancholy that couldn't be explained, as if he had always coveted the intimacy of a perfect silence that lets the hearts speak.  
  
Sakusa didn’t care much about Atsumu, but at that time, having someone next to him made him feel better, safe.  
  
"My head hurts"  
  
Atsumu nodded.  
  
Then they both turned their eyes to the TV.  
  
Five, twenty, thirty minutes passed and the silence that had descended on them was different from what Sakusa had unconsciously expected. Of course it was nice, after all it was a rare occurrence to spend time with Miya Atsumu without hearing nonsense coming out of his mouth every second, and Sakusa was grateful for it. But there was something unusual, something wrong with that quiet that reigned in the air cracks between them.  
  
It was probably because it was a new, unexpected experience. Probably there was nothing strange, but Sakusa asked "Miya, is everything okay?"  
  
Atsumu didn’t look at him when he said "Yeah" and that was even more unusual because the real Atsumu would have given him one of those grins of his and say something like, 'Aw, Omi-kun, worried 'bout me?'  
  
But his gaze was lost beyond the images on the screen, his pupils were motionless, so Sakusa imagined that the real Atsumu was far more distant than he had believed, immersed in a deep pit of thoughts. Better not to disturb him.  
  
"Ya should go to bed, Omi-kun, it’s late" he said when he awoke from his trance.  
  
"I could say the same about you"  
  
"I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. Yer eyes are practically closed"  
  
"Who are you and what have you done to the real Miya?" he asked, because Atsumu never bothered to be so considerate.  
  
Atsumu frowned and stared at him. Then he relaxed and smiled slowly, one of those smiles that blossom only in those hours of the day when night and morning meet to merge in a dance made of wind steps and dew breaths, a twine of leaves and chirps, threads of shadow and light.  
  
"I’m still me, Omi, I just don’t want ya to be a stupid zombie, incapable of hitting my tosses tomorrow" he said, sinking his face under the duvet they were now sharing.  
  
"You know what? You're actually more pleasant at night" Sakusa found himself confessing, allowing himself a smile that was the mirror image of what had appeared on the other's lips.  
  
Atsumu chuckled softly "What a dirty mouth ya got, Omi-Omi"  
  
"Ignore what I said" he threw a pillow at him. Atsumu’s reflexes were not quick enough to dodge it and it hit him in the face, on that smug grin.  
  
Then silence returned. This time it was natural, no embarrassment, no misplaced pieces, no sense of heaviness between the two. There was simply nothing left to communicate with words.

An indefinite amount of time later Sakusa got up to go to his room.  
  
"Good night" he whispered.  
  
"Good night, Omi-Omi"  
  
Shortly after opening his door, Sakusa realized that, at an unspecified moment, his head had stopped throbbing.  
  
He collapsed as soon as his body hit the mattress.  
  
...  
  
The next day they didn’t talk about it.  
  
Not when they left the dorm at the same hour, nor when they stayed longer in the gym to practice, nor when they got in the car together or when they opened the door of their rooms, one next to the other, at the same time.  
  
That night, the team decided to watch a movie. Some, namely Tomas and Inunaki, had retired before the end because of what they called "tiredness" (and if someone saw them enter the same room, they didn't say anything). Others, namely Bokuto, had fallen asleep watching it. Hinata had decided to go to bed early, so he didn't stay after the end.  
  
Sakusa watched Atsumu get up and, with an uncharacteristic delicacy, wake Bokuto up and take him to his room.  
  
He followed him with his eyes as he went to the kitchen and pulled a small pot out of the drawer.  
  
"D'ya want something to drink too, or are ya going to bed?"  
  
Sakusa looked around, as if he didn't expect that question to be addressed to him. But he was the only other person in the room, so there was no other choice.  
  
It was midnight, he should have refused Atsumu's offer. Because next morning they had practice and Sakusa didn't want to risk not giving his all, especially if you consider that last night he had lost valuable sleep hours.  
  
But a voice inside him told him to stay, to try to get to know this new Atsumu, the quietest, most authentic, most vulnerable version.  
  
Atsumu understood everything simply by looking at him  
  
"I'll bring ya a chamomile tea"  
  
How did he know? Ah right, the day before Sakusa had prepared it when he was still convinced he was alone. That meant Atsumu, although wrapped in his halo of sleepiness, had noticed it. He had never stopped observing.  
  
When everything was ready he approached the couch and Sakusa moved so as to make room for him, Atsumu handed him his mug and got himself comfortable under a blanket while turning on the TV. For a few seconds Atsumu continued to sip his infusion, then froze as if he realized he had forgotten something and offered him a corner of his blanket, giving him the chance to share that warmth. Sakusa gladly accepted it.  
  
Neither of them dared to break the thread of silence that united them, not until Atsumu stood up and went to rinse the two mugs in the sink. Even the roar of the water seemed subdued, distant, a whisper of life in the middle of a desert of pure stillness, in which even the wind was something solid and crystallized.  
  
Sakusa didn’t take his eyes off him for a second. Atsumu’s movements were slow, but effective, his eyes were concentrated, but absent, his hands danced lightly under that miniature waterfall.  
  
It seemed like something he was used to, robotic gestures one after the other, gestures that muscle memory couldn’t forget.  
  
It seemed something so familiar to Sakusa: a routine.  
  
It was this thought that led him to ask "How often do you come here?"  
  
Atsumu confessed to him that he spent most nights on that couch since he arrived at the dorm. He always had a problem with sleep, but when he was younger he had Osamu: every time he couldn’t sleep he started talking to his brother to distract himself, he was always the one to start the conversation, Osamu merely showed he was alive through murmurings, to make him understand that he was listening even though, Atsumu told him, he was not 100% sure that Osamu was actually paying attention. But it was nice to have someone to speak with, complain to, joke with. Once his twin had fallen asleep, Atsumu didn’t stop, he kept adding nonsense, stupid facts, sometimes revealing secrets. The silence of the night was an excellent confidante, it always listens and never judges you. You can be sure that he will keep his mouth shut, he won't reveal to anyone the words you whisper with a broken voice in those hours when time is suspended over an abyss of infinity.  
  
But now Atsumu was alone, he had no one else to talk to but himself, he no longer had the certainty of someone breathing in his same room. It was ironic, Sakusa thought, since Atsumu had repeatedly shown he hated many loud and low sounds and noises, so much so that he had to silence the audience during his serves. But Sakusa imagined it was because those sounds distracted him. Maybe that’s why he needed to focus on someone else’s breath, so he wouldn’t be left in the company of his own twisted mind.  
  
Sakusa discovered that Atsumu felt the constant need to keep his brain occupied and, in order to do so, he filled it with useless and bizarre thoughts, knick knacks and remnants of a distant past, or he gave all his attention to a single place or moment, turning it around and around the endings of his neurons. Some other times he preferred to immerse himself in the continuous flow of that river of incoherence called memory.  
  
"The fact that you are actually capable of thinking is amazing" Sakusa mocked him.  
  
"Omi-kun, you’re mean" Atsumu kicked him under the blanket.  
  
Sakusa smiled smugly.  
  
When he turned to look at him he saw that his eyes were fixed on the TV screen so he imagined that he was wandering somewhere along the streets of that intangible world of which only Atsumu had the keys.  
  
And if Sakusa spent a little too many seconds, minutes staring at Atsumu's profile, no one would ever know except for silence.  
  
...  
  
Day after day, brick after brick, mug after mug of hot infusions, they began to build what had become a routine. They had carved out a small rectangle of time, a dimension poised between day and night, a world that rests on roots of silence and foundations of whispered words, circumscribed to the space occupied by a simple couch placed in the middle of the common room of a simple dormitory.  
  
Those nights belonged to them and no one else. That couch was their kingdom. But only for a while.  
  
Their nights weren't made for sleeping, they were made for living.  
  
Sakusa and Atsumu were two drops of rain racing on the glass of a window. Both of them ran an irregular road, full of curves, of bizarre clashes with smaller or bigger droplets, of obstacles, but they followed the same direction. Then one day the wind had blown differently, it had altered their individual paths and pushed them against each other, they had collided.  
  
And little by little, they had begun to get used to the presence of the other.  
  
They didn't meet every day: sometimes Sakusa went to bed early because, unlike Atsumu, he felt the need to sleep and his body wanted to rest, other times Atsumu didn't show up, preferring the mute intimacy of his room. Sometimes they remained seated without uttering a word for what the hands of the clock considered hours, but for them they were short moments of pause, of temporary freedom. There was something addictive about those fleeting instants. It was like being on the court, playing an intense and fun game, in which every player gives his best, a game from which you can learn many lessons, in which every point is the result of sweat, fatigue, is the finish line of a long track, the product of a hard work.  
  
The kind of game that fills your chest.  
  
Neither of them would have known how to define with words what was going on between them. Were they two delirious souls, but still lucid enough to yearn for someone’s closeness to fill that boundless void that opened inside them in those hours when the earth held its breath? Or were they something more? Friends?  
  
The only certainty was that something between the two had changed.  
  
It was possible to notice it during the day, when the shadows dissipated and the light allowed to discover new perspectives.  
  
Atsumu and Sakusa continued to be Atsumu and Sakusa, bickering during practice, making fun of each other during matches or in the locker room. But a sense of lightness had slowly made its way through the inlets of space between them.  
  
It was easy to sense it when they sat in the back of the bus, one next to the other, when the head of a sleepy Atsumu kept banging against the window so as not to invade the air bubble of the other man, when Sakusa noticed it (because at a certain point he, too, had begun to observe) and, without saying anything, he gently grabbed his head and placed it on his shoulder. You could see how Atsumu’s body immediately relaxed and Sakusa’s did not stiffen.  
  
It was obvious when Atsumu approached Sakusa to show him some stupid picture on his phone just before afternoon practice started, or when Sakusa went shopping and stopped a few more seconds in front of the herbal tea shelf (Atsumu’s favorite was the fennel one).  
  
It was evident in the way Atsumu had started washing his hands for more than ten seconds, in the way Sakusa’s Google search history showed titles like 'natural remedies for insomnia'.  
  
And it was clear even during the darkest hours of the night, when Atsumu’s usually perfect and sure hands started shaking and the setter started playing with his fingers as if he wanted to keep them constantly occupied. In the way, some days, his mouth began to talk and talk and talk, building houses and cities and villages made of words, of breaths that he kept forgetting to take, of the steam that came out of his mug.  
  
And Sakusa listened.  
  
He wouldn’t miss anything. Not the way Atsumu’s eyes shone when he spoke about the sport so dear to him, not the tone of his voice when he mentioned his brother or the absent smile in which his lips bent when he talked about his old team, Inarizaki, remembering the year he had been their captain. Sakusa had played against them, they were fearsome and challenging opponents.  
  
Atsumu was impressive even then: irritating, arrogant, selfish, but impressive. And now Sakusa had the chance to get to know this complex creature called Miya Atsumu, a being made of multiple layers, all intertwined, coexisting within the same body, the same mind.  
  
And Sakusa couldn’t help but be curious.  
  
It took him three weeks to decide to say something about himself. If it was difficult for Atsumu to sleep, it was never easy for Sakusa to open up to others. The only person he lightly talked to was Komori, and Sakusa rarely started the conversation. He simply didn’t have much to tell, not about his family (his siblings were all older than him and his parents hadn't been very present in his life), not about his college adventures since the most exciting thing he had done was playing volleyball and, thanks to the fans and various magazines, every detail of that experience had been revealed.  
  
Sakusa had been a quiet child, and he had grown up becoming a quiet boy and then a quiet man.  
  
What could he talk about? The books he liked to read? Could he ask him what his favorite color was? What did he like to eat?  
  
This things didn’t seem that interesting.  
  
But with time Sakusa realized that Atsumu could transform everything, even the most insignificant thing, into an endless monologue or dialogue. Every night they learned something new about each other. Atsumu had learnt to cook thanks to his brother, he couldn’t draw, he liked to listen to pop music. Sakusa was an astronomy nerd, he liked puzzles, he hated reality shows.  
  
Sometimes words weren’t even necessary, like the moments when Atsumu pulled Sakusa’s favorite mug out of the cupboard, or the ones when the latter only needed a glance to understand how tired the setter actually was and send him to his room, before he got up to wash the only witnesses to their late night talks.  
  
Occasionally Sakusa told him about some fun time spent with his college teammates or his old team, Itachiyama, about his captain Tsukasa Iizuna. Every time Atsumu heard that name, he snorted with superiority, and Sakusa giggled.  
  
He had once told Atsumu about his niece, a ten-year-old girl who was very energetic and passionate about volleyball, every month he had the chance to meet her and spend time with her. Sometimes Sakusa took her for a walk, but generally they stayed home. It wasn't difficult to be with her, usually she started talking, shouting something incomprehensible about the Black Jackals (of which she had self-proclaimed the number one fan) or jumping off sofas and armchairs pretending to spike a ball, saying that one day she would become like her uncle, or even better. Sakusa had found her dedication adorable, and told her that the only way to do that was to practice and practice and practice, learning how to take care of yourself, and maybe a little luck.

“Does she like me?” Atsumu had asked winking.

“She did before I told her about your shitty character”

“Ya brainwashed yer own niece just ‘cause she liked me more. Admit it!”

“She hates setters, says they’re useless” he had lied.

Atsumu had brought a hand to his chest as if he had felt personally attacked “She’s obviously never watched her uncle play. Should I tell her all ya do is slouch on the court? What would she say? Ahahaha uncle ‘yoomi, what a loser” he had used a high-pitched voice for the last part.

Sakusa had regretted telling him what his niece’s nickname for him was.  
  
"I've never been good with kids" Sakusa had confessed some time later.  
  
"Who would have thought" Atsumu had laughed, probably remembering how Sakusa acted with the kids that accompanied them on the court before the official games. Once he had frightened one of them by simply looking at him and Hinata had to go to retrieve him. Sakusa had had to hold him while he took a picture with Jackasuke to make up for it.  
  
The most embarrassing moment of their nights had been when Atsumu had immediately discovered his crush on Ushijima.  
  
"How did you do it?"  
  
"Instinct"  
  
"Miya"  
  
"Omi-kun, it doesn’t take a team of scientists to figure it out. And we always watch the Adlers' games" he had said while rolling his eyes.  
  
Sakusa had never spoken to anyone, not even Komori, about his feelings for Ushijima. He had kept them hidden in the corner of his heart farther from his mouth, for fear that they might accidentally spill out. From an early age, he had a deep admiration for the boy who would become the ace of Shiratorizawa, and then the biggest cannon of Japan. At first he had considered him a rival, he still considered him a rival, but something had changed at a certain point and Sakusa wasn't able to explain what it was, he couldn’t understand it even if he tried so hard. So it had to be something unknown, something people used to call feelings.  
  
Sakusa had threatened to smother Atsumu with a pillow and hide his body in a place where no one would ever find it if he ever had the stupid (and ill-fated) idea of telling someone about his secret. But he actually knew he could trust him.  
  
And then Atsumu had confessed that, until a few months ago, he had had a crush on Hinata. Sakusa had almost spit out his chamomile tea. He couldn’t believe it, it was impossible, there was no evidence. He couldn't remember a single moment when Atsumu had shown that he felt something for their opposite hitter, he had always behaved with him in the same way he had behaved with everyone else. Maybe that was the point. After all, when someone has a flirty attitude, it’s hard to understand who's the person that makes their heart beat faster than the others.  
  
But Atsumu had always known that he had no chance, he had understood from the beginning that Hinata had eyes for only one setter, and that he had naturally black hair, not dyed blond. Finally Sakusa could see what he hadn't been able to see in Atsumu: every time their teammate spoke of Kageyama Tobio his eyes did that weird thing, as if they filled with light and determination, his smile grew so big that he could light up an entire solar system. For Atsumu it was a lost game right from the start and, as much as he hated losing, this time he had had to accept it.  
  
He had suffered in silence.  
  
Sakusa had imagined it had to be painful, although Atsumu seemed to be completely done with it by now.  
  
"If ya were me, Omi-  
  
"Ew"  
  
Atsumu had hit him in the arm.  
  
"If ya were me, would you have told him?" Atsumu had asked, looking gloomy.  
  
"I guess I would have wanted to get rid of that weight" he had replied without looking at him.  
  
Atsumu had nodded absently.  
  
"Didja tell Toshi-kun?"  
  
"No"  
  
"Ya should"  
  
Sakusa hadn’t asked why. He had already answered by himself.  
  
"I’ll think about it"  
  
And then silence.  
  
...  
  
It was months later, two days before the match against the Adlers, that everything changed for Atsumu.  
  
He wasn’t nervous at all. He practiced every day, tenaciously, diligently, with that hunger that he could never satiate, and he would also train tomorrow. He was calm.  
  
But for some reason he couldn’t stay still. And he feared that, combined with his insomnia, this hyperactivity would lead him not to be in his best shape on the court.  
  
This was something he could never afford.  
  
That evening he decided to go out.  
  
Around nine he was ready. But when he left his room a voice he had learned to know stopped him.  
  
"Where are you going?" Sakusa was lying on the couch, the purple blanket covered his mouth. His eyes, that should have been fixed on the television screen, were pointed in Atsumu's. For some reason the scene made him smile slightly.  
  
But that smile was soon hidden behind his words when he answered "I’m going for a run and then to the beach"  
  
"Are you really planning to go for a swim at this time?" now he was frowning at him and his eyelids were half-closed.  
  
Of course Sakusa was only interested in his health. What else would he be interested in? What else would he care for?  
  
"No, I’m just gonna relax for a while"  
  
"Can I come with you?"  
  
That was unexpected.  
  
Atsumu had slowly become accustomed to Sakusa’s presence in his life. He had welcomed him next to him, he had made room for him on that couch that until then had been _his_ couch and the only one who knew him. But those moments with Sakusa were like dreams, night hallucinations that started when they both sat down and ended when one of them went to bed. But like all dreams, even those moments were destined to be consumed and to leave a strange taste in his memory, a faded trail of what they had been. This is why the question Sakusa had just asked seemed something unusual, an exceptional, extraordinary event. But it didn't produce a strident noise. On the contrary, it sounded like an improvised note that fit perfectly into the melody, without damaging it in any way, as if it had always been there waiting. What had appeared to be a timeless thing became part of the flux of time. All in a terribly natural way.  
  
Atsumu nodded.  
  
Sakusa got up. He turned off the TV. Went to his room. Closed the door.  
  
Exactly two minutes later he came out in white shorts, black t-shirt and gray zipper sweatshirt.  
  
Atsumu let his gaze run swiftly over him before turning to go out. And Sakusa followed.  
  
They ran side by side for at least an hour, they didn't utter a word, preferring to let their breaths dictate the rhythm. They never stopped, sometimes they accelerated or slowed down, but neither asked the other to take a break.  
  
At the end of their run they found themselves on the seashore.  
  
Atsumu sat down on the cold sand. Sakusa scowled at him, but after a while he did the same, positioning himself a meter from him. Atsumu smiled.  
  
"Why didja want to come?" He asked, his eyes contemplating the starry sky.  
  
"I needed it. Why do you ask?" He probably turned to look at him, but Atsumu couldn’t take his eyes off the bright void above them.  
  
It’s bizarre. Usually when Atsumu thought of the void he perceived it as a pit full of nothing, an abyss so vast that he could not even glimpse its boundaries, he considered it something that had to do with the ground, like standing on the edge of a dark chasm that stretches for miles and miles below you. It never occurred to him to associate it with the idea of height. Usually looking at the sky fills your lungs, makes your eyes close slowly as if to listen to that primordial language, brings out a smile on your lips.  
  
But what determined this difference?  
  
Perhaps it was because the abysmal void was often linked to the concept of the fall. Men like to dominate everything in a logical and organized way, but if they are falling, they lose that bit of control that they were deluded to have. What can a young and inexperienced creature like a human being do against a millennial force like gravity?  
  
However, the emptiness of the sky was perceived differently, because one of the few certainties of those ephemeral human beings is that the sky can't suddenly fall and crush you, it is simply there, to watch over you. It is a colorful shield on which clouds, stars, a moon have been set. It is picturesque and sublime at the same time. It is beautiful.  
  
But even the sky knows how to fall.  
  
And it does so in the form of very strange phenomena to which our science has given a logical explanation and a name. Maybe that’s why many people are afraid of thunderstorms, rain is a piece of a sky that's falling, and the fall generates fear, terror. Atsumu was not certain. After all, rain is made of drops of water and hasn't water always been a symbol of purity, catharsis, life? Well, even life could be a source of agitation, right? And wasn’t it the sky that caused that uncertainty?  
  
"I don't know. It's weird"  
  
"How?"  
  
"Well, I thought ya’d rather stay at the dorm to avoid catching a cold or fever before the game you’ve been waiting for months"  
  
Sakusa didn't answer so Atsumu decided to turn to him.  
  
There is another kind of void. The one you usually feel in your stomach, or in your throat when you want to say something, but you find yourself breathless. The one that interrupts you in the middle of the sentence you were about to say and makes you forget everything. The one that, for a few endless seconds, paralyzes you. It is the expression of a larger emptiness, which is directly intertwined with the concept of existence, which is connected to the void of the sky.  
  
At that moment Atsumu witnessed it opening in Sakusa’s dark eyes as he looked up.  
  
He felt it in the way his own breath caught.  
  
"I needed it" he repeated.  
  
And somehow Atsumu understood that Sakusa was nervous. But there was no way it was because of the game since he had also been practicing to the point of exhaustion. Atsumu knew this because he had stayed with him during those evenings in the gym, when Sakusa kept trying to receive his serves. So it had to be for-  
  
"You’re thinking 'bout him, right?"  
  
"I don’t know"  
  
Miya Atsumu had never understood art. He knew, objectively, that paintings conceal mysteries and evoke feelings and represent past and present and future worlds, he knew that books were alive and swarming with pulsations and vibrations, he knew that the vastness of the sky made a human being feel a small particle of the universe. But, no matter how hard he tried, he never understood.  
  


Even now Atsumu wasn't able to understand. To understand Sakusa’s words, that emptiness in his eyes, the sadness in his very slight smile. Understand himself, why those few syllables shook him, why his chest felt so heavy, why it hurt so much.  
  
He let himself fall backwards, so that he could lie down on that irregular dunes of cold sand.  
  
Sakusa stared at him.  
  
Atsumu smiled at him.  
  
The only artist he ever liked was Vincent Van Gogh. Perhaps it was the way he treated his spots, in which the brush seemed to fly and rest on the canvas leaving behind fragments of soul. There was something hypnotic in his works, a sense of unknown, of undefined, of irregular. His paintings were light and heavy, concrete and abstract, movement and absence of movement. They were night and day and the anomaly between the two, a place out of this world, but at the same time so connected to it.  
  
And, in that moment, Atsumu existed in that place.  
  
"Omi-kun, are ya cold?" he asked him when he saw his back tremble.  
  
Sakusa nodded.  
  
Atsumu handed him his zip up hoodie.  
  
"Are you crazy? You’ll catch something" he said, alarmed.  
  
"I spent years of my life living with a bacterium, my immune system is well trained"  
  
"It doesn’t reassure me"  
  
Atsumu laughed.  
  
Sakusa fixed the hoodie on his shoulders.  
  
Prior to his suicide, Van Gogh had painted a canvas entitled ['Wheatfield with Crows'](https://images.app.goo.gl/SdKdB7HKqoM9a8gdA). In the background you could see the dark tones of a storm coming, while in the foreground there were three paths leading to three different destinations, but it was impossible to see where those roads of paint led. It could be a way to achieve happiness, or perhaps infinite sadness, or perhaps an answer.  
  
Maybe all his life Van Gogh had been looking for an answer. Had he found it?  
  
Even Atsumu was looking for one, even Atsumu was lost in that wheatfield on which loomed a terrible storm.  
  
"Do you come here often?' Sakusa’s low voice asked.  
  
"Omi-kun, are ya hittin on me?" he chuckled.  
  
Sakusa ignored him.  
  
"Often" he confessed  
  
"Is there a reason?"  
  
_When I’m nervous or indecisive or angry or sad or insecure or lonely.  
_  
"When I don’t know what to do"  
  
Life is made of paths. And they aren’t always linear. Some of them are full of curves that send your head spinning just by looking at them; others are deceptive, they delude you, making you think they're trustworthy, they seem paved, quiet, but once you take them, they will show themselves for what they really are and could bring you back to the starting line or even further back; some are uphill, or downhill, or bumpy. But none of them can avoid the coming of the storm. Rain is part of everyone’s life, isn’t it?  
  
Which way should he have chosen?  
  
"Are you confused?"  
  
"Maybe"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I don’t know"  
  
The last path Atsumu had chosen had led him to finding himself on a tightrope suspended on an infinite grey. He felt like the ['Wanderer above the sea of fog'](https://images.app.goo.gl/xqHbwkEweWExCzKy9), a painting by Caspar David Friedrich: a man facing a ravine that opens towards the unknown.  
  
The next step could have been fatal.  
  
"It feels good" Sakusa whispered.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Here"  
  
Atsumu closed his eyes.  
  
And everything was silence.  
  
A silence that could be heard in the slow and regular murmuring of the sea, in the song of the breeze.  
  
He opened his eyes to get lost under that sky full of unreachable incandescent lanterns.  
  
He could  
  
have fallen  
  
asleep.  
  
"Let’s go home" a distant voice said, at a time that could be a second or an hour later.  
  
A hand reached out to him.  
  
He just had to take one step…  
  
The moment Sakusa’s hand pulled him up, Atsumu took that step.  
  
And he fell.  
  
  
Sakusa Kiyoomi was art.  
  
And Miya Atsumu was lost in the twists and turns of his chiaroscuros.  
  
...  
  
And then the day of the game arrived.  
  
Of course Hinata spent all the time looking at Kageyama, or smiling at him across the net with bright eyes full of competitiveness. Everyone noticed it, some rolled their eyes, others gave him a pat on the shoulder, Atsumu winked at him. It didn't hurt. It stopped hurting long ago.  
  
He noticed that Sakusa was doing the same with Ushijima. But he couldn't be distracted during a game, especially when the result depended on the accuracy of his tosses, the unpredictability of his serves. He would've had time to dissect his feelings later, so he pushed them so low into the depths of his brain that he, simply, forgot.  
  
And the Black Jackals won.  
  
Once in the locker room they decided to go celebrate together. Good, finally he could have asked Sakusa if-  
  
"I’m not coming" Sakusa said.  
  
Atsumu felt a flapping of wings inside his stomach, but it was not the frail and graceful one of a butterfly. It was an insistent, noisy beat that threw everything into turmoil.  
  
He waited for Sakusa to be closer, so that no one else could hear him when he said "Come on, Omi-kun, don’t abandon us today"  
  
_Don’t abandon me._  
  
"I’m going out with Wakatoshi-kun" he whispered, so softly that he thought he had imagined it.  
  
What was that pain he felt in the left part of his chest? Something stuck deep into his skin, piercing the tissues of his organs.  
  
(Maybe a piece of those glass wings he heard just before?)  
  
And Atsumu wasn’t that good in anatomy, but he was sure that it was the place where his heart was located .  
  
Oh.  
  
That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.  
  
Smiling at Sakusa was the greatest effort he made that evening.  
  
…  
  
He was alone. So painfully alone. On that couch that seemed to have lost its warmth.  
  
Atsumu had never been able to fall asleep easily, but that night was different: usually it was as if he was chasing sleep, he ran, ran and ran, but he could never grasp it. At one point he got tired of chasing something that was impossible to reach and collapsed. But today sleep had stopped beside him, it had invited him into its arms and he had refused, he had pushed it away waiting for something, for someone, for a return.  
  
Atsumu was a masochist. He knew what he was getting into, a part of him had always known. For this reason he had not seen any light bulb switching on, no sudden lightning had exploded in front of his nose to make the truth clear. Maybe he had decided to ignore it. And he had been good at it, he had done a really good job.  
  
Until now.  
  
...  
  
Atsumu lost hope around 3:30am.  
  
He got up, washed his mug and slowly walked the short distance between him and his room, looking towards the entrance of the dormitory several times before closing the door behind him.  
  
(What he didn’t know, and never would have known, was that he would have needed to wait another six seconds. Six meager, ruthless, endless seconds.  
  
Because the moment his body was falling on the bed, the common room door opened, framing the entrance of a man with slightly reddened cheeks and a small smile under the mask he was wearing).  
  
...  
  
Atsumu imagined that, the following days, Sakusa would stop showing up in their secret place.  
  
It was his greatest fear.  
  
All day he kept wondering what would happen that night. Would Sakusa come or would he prefer to stay in his room to video call Ushijima? How was their date? Was it a date? Did Sakusa confess his feelings? Did they kiss?  
  
That night Sakusa told him everything. Atsumu didn’t even have to ask.  
  
On the one hand, the fact that Sakusa felt so comfortable around Atsumu that he trusted him with his feelings was a victory. Finally the setter had managed to become someone reliable both inside and outside the court. But on the other hand it was one of the biggest defeats. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel right at all.  
  
Atsumu was tired.  
  
So tired.  
  
And sad.  
  
And angry.  
  
Angry at himself because after years he had not yet learned to resign in front of a rejection. One thinks of getting used to it after the first three times. But no. Atsumu’s stubbornness had won against his own heart.  
  
The heart, eh? A pulsating little thing as big as the fist that Atsumu used to silence the audience before his serves, as the punch he wanted to throw at himself, or maybe to a mirror, or maybe to Osamu (because they were twins, because even Osamu, in its own way, had rejected him).  
  
The heart: a mass of cells and tissues and valves, an involuntary organ, uncontrollable, thinking autonomously or perhaps not thinking at all, giving itself spontaneously without the brain's permission.  
  
But as long as it kept bleeding inside his chest, it was fine, wasn’t it?  
  
Just don’t let it get out.  
  
_It’s simple_ , Atsumu told himself (it had been simple with Hinata).  
  
So why did Sakusa’s voice bother him so much? Why couldn’t he bear his little smiles to his phone screen? Why did the light in those dark eyes weigh on his stomach?  
  


  
But also Sakusa had uncertainties. He told him that dating Ushijima wasn’t like he had expected, but it was nice, fun ( _how much fun can it be to date someone who never smiles?_ ). But Sakusa thought he felt differently when he was spending time with Ushijima, however, he couldn’t explain how.  
  
Atsumu reassured him, told him it was normal not to know how to feel, that maybe it wasn’t as special as Sakusa had thought. But in spite of everything, Sakusa still wanted to continue exploring that new and unknown land.  
  
All Atsumu could do was cling to Sakusa’s doubts.  
  
And hope to be strong enough not to loosen the grip. Hope that Sakusa wouldn't push him away.  
  
At some point Sakusa had started asking him for advice.  
  
He seemed to have forgotten that the only side of love Atsumu knew was rejection.  
  
The first time Atsumu had laughed. One of those laughs that leave a bitterness in your mouth, that help to hide (or to show) your despair.  
  
Atsumu couldn’t forget its sound.  
  
He felt it in his ears just before he went to bed. It haunted him as the spirit of what would never be. It crawled on his skin when he got out of the shower, when the roar of the water could no longer be his shield.  
  
That piercing noise could turn water into blood. And Atsumu was drowning in that dense red ocean.  
  
There was a painting called ['The raft of the Medusa'](https://images.app.goo.gl/5YHrEb2AWNvfwAU48) that showed the drama of those who survived a tragedy. The characters were on a furious search for salvation on a raft that the wind was pushing towards a very high wave of death. Would the small ship, barely visible on the horizon, reach them in time? Or maybe their fate was to temporarily grip the nearest piece of wood before getting lost in the depths of a sea as dark as Sakusa’s eyes?  
  
Atsumu felt like those men: alone in someone's company. A step away from letting himself go, from giving in to that current that would drag him down.  
  
And Sakusa didn't notice anything.  
  
Atsumu wondered if it was because he was a good actor or because he had lost Sakusa’s attention. Perhaps it was no longer necessary to twist and deform his facial features in what felt like the mediocre and drawn version of a smile.  
  
For this reason he occasionally allowed himself to stare at Sakusa's profile, he just knew that he wouldn't reciprocate his look, too busy reading Ushijima's new messages. His eyes seemed to light up with something that made his whole face vibrate, the corners of his mouth bent gracefully upwards, when he smiled he showed his white straight and perfect teeth.  
  
This hurt.  
  
This was the smile that Atsumu was never allowed to see. It was art.  
  
And if the pain was unbearable, Atsumu endured it. Because it was all his fault. Because he was the one who pushed Sakusa to confess his feelings to Ushijima. Because he let himself fall when he had the chance to step back and not forward.  
  
And if he kept going on like that, maybe he'd reach the breaking point. And his heart would no longer be the problem.  
_  
Why Sakusa? When? How?_  
  
Atsumu had started to wonder. He had taken that couch of theirs and reduced it to its most microscopic particles. He had decomposed it into pieces, into molecules, into atoms. He needed to understand at what point the road he had chosen had begun to curve, an inch at a time, imperceptible for someone who, like Atsumu, only knows how to look ahead. In that moment more than ever he needed those memories so dear to his old captain, Kita Shinsuke.  
  
Had it been when he first saw Sakusa sleeping? Half of his face was hidden under the duvet and Atsumu allowed his eyes to wander for a few seconds (minutes?) on his eyelashes, long and black and long and thin and long, then he had passed to those two moles above the right eyebrow, those were the most obvious, but there were smaller others playing hide-and-seek with the locks of his dark, fluffy hair, or at least it seemed fluffy. Maybe Atsumu had reached out a hand to find out, but he couldn't remember ever touching them. Maybe it had all been a dream.  
  
Or, on the contrary, had it been when Atsumu was the one falling asleep? He had felt something shaking him, then a delicate and cold touch on his cheek. Atsumu had opened his eyes and found himself face to face with Sakusa’s slight smile. He hadn't wanted to wake up. He should have never woken up.  
  
"Atsumu" he had whispered. His name. Not his last name.  
  
Every now and then that cold feeling came back to caress his cheek.  
  
And Atsumu let the shivers run.  
  
...  
  
There are specific spots where people like to be kissed.  
  
Atsumu knew because he had them, because the people with whom he had been had them (even if it had always been unstable relationships, where there was no open door for feelings).  
  
Sakusa also had them. And Atsumu had observed him so much that he thought he knew them by now or, at least, he knew where he would want to kiss him.  
  
He would begin with gentle, delicate pecks on the neck, followed by a slow descent towards his right arm, towards his wrist. And then a long stop on his radial artery, he would stop to listen to Sakusa’s heartbeat on his lips, he would taste it. Who knows what it would have been like? Would it have remained regular? Would it have gone crazy?  
  
He wanted to know how he could make his heart beat.  
  
Atsumu wanted to learn all the ways to make Sakusa's heart beat faster.  
  
And then he would move on to every single, adorable mole. Atsumu guessed that he had many on his chest and back, but he never remembered seeing Sakusa shirtless, so he could only let his imagination wander under that dri-fit of his. But he certainly did not miss the myriad constellations that he had on his arms, legs, probably also on his thighs. And he wanted to kiss them all.  
  
But Atsumu desired lips that he was not allowed to have.  
  
Because Sakusa told him "We kissed"  
  
And hope shattered in Atsumu’s eyes.  
  
...  
  
Finally the Adlers were given a week to rest. Ushijima had taken the opportunity to come and visit. Sakusa was grateful to be able to see him in the flesh and not in pixels on a cracked phone screen.  
  
He had just returned from the umpteenth date of that week.  
  
All in all it wasn't bad, but that feeling of uncertainty had remained. And Sakusa had not yet figured out how to define it, what name to give it.  
  
As long as he didn’t have him by his side, he had seen Ushijima as an opponent, a worthy rival, someone who kept pushing him to improve.  
  
Ushijima out of the court was not so different from Ushijima on the other side of the net: he remained imposing, beautiful, competitive. Sakusa had several occasions to see him in quiet scenarios, such as when the afternoon light, filtered by the foliage of the trees at the park, danced among his hair, or when his lips were a breath away from his own, or even when, before going back to his hotel room, he’d walk him back to the dorm quietly.  
  
And that silence wasn't embarrassing, but it was different.  
  
Sakusa wondered when he started using Atsumu as a benchmark.  
  
At first he had thought that Atsumu’s silences were a way to finally let that sharp tongue of his rest, but then he began to show himself for what he was: a tangle of bright and pale colors, of screams and whispers that are barely heard. Miya Atsumu was more than he showed to the others, he was even more than the pieces of him that Sakusa had begun to combine. And his silences were more eloquent than any of his words. It was something Sakusa had gradually discovered, something enclosed in the way his eyes rolled when it came to his brother, or in the way he held his mug and brought it close to his mouth as if he cared more about the warmth that it could transmit than about the liquid it contained, or even the way he had kept staring at Sakusa’s phone with an expressionless face for an entire minute when he accidentally dropped it, causing a crack to open on its screen. He had apologized, but he hadn't really needed to. Sakusa had understood. He had learned.  
  
Atsumu’s silences had helped Sakusa to know him.  
  
Ushijima's ones had a different color, they were like a violin string that someone had touched, making it vibrate, and Sakusa was not yet able to understand if the sound was pleasant or not. All he knew was that his breath caught at every swing.  
  
Ushijima’s silences confused him.  
  
But it wasn’t a bad thing, right? After all, talking to him was always interesting, there was always something to discuss. Thanks to Atsumu Sakusa was able to speak without feeling uncomfortable, to make words flow out of his mouth as if they were floating serenely on a river, lulled by the wind, and not as if he were trying to say the right thing at the right time so as not embarrass himself.  
  
Every now and then Ushijima told him about his friend Tendou (a little more often that every now and then) and his extravagant adventures. He always had a new story to share. Sakusa talked about Komori, although the only interesting thing Komori did was to be informed about any new gossip about the V League players. And everything had gotten worse since he joined the same team as Suna Rintarou who, according to Atsumu, was one of his kind.  
  
In any case there was something distant in Ushijima. Or maybe it was Sakusa who had widened that distance between them.  
  
He didn’t know what to do.  
  
Once he crossed the threshold of the dormitory, when he saw Atsumu lying on the couch, he felt something strange, like an out of place piece that he could not locate in the right spot.  
  
At first he didn’t give it much importance, so caught up in his insecurities, his doubts.  
  
And Atsumu helped him. He listened to him. For hours.  
  
And at some point he told him that there were specific places where people liked to be kissed and that, if he wanted to drive Ushijima crazy, he would have to go for his arms because, as he said, "he’s so strong, he’ll like to know that his muscles are appreciated"  
  
And Sakusa, not knowing why, asked him "Where do you like to be kissed?"  
  
Atsumu's eyes widened before he answered "I don’t know, Omi-kun, find out" with his typical fox-like smile.  
  
Sakusa swallowed.  
  
Then he threw him a pillow.  
  
Because he deserved it. Because he had to stop saying things like that. Because maybe he wanted to distract him from the warm sensation that was spreading on his cheeks, his neck, in his stomach.  
  
It was wrong. It was all wrong.  
  
....  
  
Only when Atsumu got up to go to bed, leaving him alone, did Sakusa realize what that strange feeling he had felt while entering the common room was.  
  
There had been nothing wrong with the painting that he had found in front of himself. Atsumu’s colors hadn't been different. On the contrary: when Sakusa had approached him, it was Atsumu who had looked at him as if he were the anomaly, the piece out of place.  
  
And that was it.  
  
That’s what he had missed.  
  
When had he started neglecting their sacred place? How long had he stopped being there for Atsumu? What did he think he’d see on the way in? Did he believe that Atsumu would stop suffering from insomnia the moment Sakusa was no longer there for him, with him, breathing beside him?  
  
How selfish of him.  
  
...  
  
It was the last day of break for Ushijima and he had decided to spend it together with Sakusa.  
  
Sakusa was nervous. Very nervous. But there was no reason to be. Because the two had already kissed, the tension had lessened. Why was it rising again? Why was he the only one who felt this change in the air?  
  
He was sitting on the bed of the person who was supposed to be his boyfriend, and he was waiting for him to come out of the shower when his phone vibrated.  
  
The messages were from Atsumu.  
  
**Can ya come here?  
  
I need ya here  
  
Please  
**  
Sakusa had just finished reading the preview of the texts when he saw them disappear one after the other.  
  
Atsumu must have eliminated them.  
  
Why did he need him? Did something happen at the dorm? Did something happen to him? Why did he delete them?  
  
If he did, they weren't that important, right?  
  
But Sakusa couldn’t stop looking at his phone's screen. Maybe those messages were meant for someone else, maybe Atsumu had accidentally clicked on Sakusa’s contact, and when he realized he had opened the wrong chat, he had deleted them to avoid misunderstanding. If so, who was the person he meant to send them to? Why did he want to know?  
  
Just at that moment the bathroom door clicked open and a half-naked Ushijima came out of it with a slightly wet body. Little droplets of water made their way through the curves of his muscles.  
  
And all Sakusa could think of was that Atsumu had deleted those stupid messages.  
  
What did he do?  
  
"Is there something wrong?" Ushijima must have noticed his wrinkled forehead, his distant eyes.  
  
"No, it’s fine" he said, coming to his senses, and putting his phone on the bedside table.  
  
_Why? Why? Why?_  
  
...  
  
Atsumu must have gone crazy.  
  
What was he thinking when he sent those messages? Clearly he wasn't thinking at all.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He had felt lonely again and he couldn't stop his hands when they had started moving and typing words that Atsumu’s mouth wasn’t ready to say. He had let them take control without interrupting and now what was he supposed to do?  
  
There was a possibility that Sakusa had not seen them since he had deleted them five seconds after sending them, but-  
  
What if he read them? How could he justify them? Would he be able to smile as he told him that he had made a mistake, that those words were not meant for him, while overlapping one lie with the other in the hope that the wall would become high enough to cover his embarrassment?  
  
The storm had reached him.  
  
And now he was in the midst of a wheatfield, nowhere to hide from the tears of a sky that was about to fall upon him. Those drops were like sharp glass cutting and making his skin bleed. Each flash of lightning was a small tear that opened up to a broken future, to all the opportunities that he had missed. And the thunders were distant and near echoes of his irregular heartbeat.  
  
How long would it have rained on him?  
  
How long would he have been paralyzed?  
  
Atsumu wanted all the things he couldn’t have. But everything was fine since no one saw him suffer.  
  
Miya Atsumu was the cypress tree in Van Gogh’s ['Starry Night'](https://images.app.goo.gl/eQXCLZ6LvJJu1MGz5). He tended infinitely to something he could never achieve, yearning for the impossible.  
  
He wondered if that cypress thought that he was hopeless, completely powerless. Who knows if, like Atsumu, he deluded himself that he could one day touch, or even grasp, what he so desired.  
  
Or maybe he knew. He had always known that he couldn't do it, but he didn't give up and firmly decided not to.  
  
Maybe Van Gogh had never given up.  
  
"Tsum-Tsum?" Someone called him.  
  
Atsumu turned "Bokkun?"  
  
"Hi, Tsum-Tsum"  
  
"What are you doing here at one thirty in the morning? Arentcha s’posed to be in bed?"  
  
"I want to call 'Kaashi"  
  
"At one thirty in the morning?"  
  
"Yes" he said as he started preparing something warm to drink "He’s been working a lot lately and he’s super stressed and can’t sleep, so I hope to distract him a little and make him feel better" he said with a wide smile and bright eyes.  
  
Oh wow, another beautiful love story that Atsumu will never understand.  
  
Maybe love was something Atsumu was never meant to feel on his skin.  
  
"But I’m waiting two o'clock because 'Kaashi hates to be disturbed while he works so he turns off the phone until he’s done" Bokuto said as he sat down next to him "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I can't sleep"  
  
Bokuto tilted his head like an owl, he seemed worried.  
  
Atsumu briefly explained the situation to him and the other finally nodded. Then they started talking a little bit. It was easy since Bokuto converted any small, microscopic thing into an endless flux of words. All Atsumu had to do was whisper something once in a while.  
  
Bokuto was actually nice to be with, especially because, at least at that time, he kept his voice low enough to be almost enjoyable.  
  
They talked mostly about volleyball and, of course, about Akaashi. He talked about him all the time. And also about food, since Bokuto (Akaashi) was a big fan of his brother’s onigiri.  
  
And Atsumu felt tired. He laid his head on Bokuto’s thigh and continued to listen to him as he spoke about how he had confessed to his boyfriend, how afraid he had been of receiving a no for an answer, how happy he had been when Akaashi first kissed him.  
  
_It's always the black haired ones…  
_  
Atsumu’s lips bent slowly upwards and perhaps a tear crossed the boundaries of his left eye, but he was quick enough to dry it before it came into contact with the fabric of the other’s shorts.  
  
Two o'clock arrived. Bokuto picked up the phone and started talking to Akaashi, as if he had forgotten about his teammate leaning on him, as if he had forgotten everything but his boyfriend’s voice.  
  
Atsumu watched him smile for one last time before closing his eyes and letting himself be lulled by his low and affectionate tone.  
  
And he fell asleep.  
  
...  
  
Ushijima had asked him to stay the night, but Sakusa had said no.  
  
He had told him that he had morning training, that he didn't want to risk being late, he had apologized, had confessed that he preferred the familiarity of his bed.  
  
And Ushijima had understood. He had almost smiled at him. He had said good night.  
  
Sakusa had told a bunch of lies that weren’t exactly lies, but not exactly truths.  
  
Sakusa needed to go back to the dorm. For some reason, he felt worried, as if something bad had happened.  
  
But when the door opened, Sakusa found himself in front of a scene that he initially couldn't understand, as if he were looking at a picture full of objects that belonged to different realities, but all clustered together. He was confused.  
  
Atsumu was sleeping on Bokuto’s legs, while the latter was talking on the phone without realizing anything, not even Sakusa's entrance.  
  
He came a little closer to make himself be noticed and Bokuto said "Wait a minute, 'Ji, this place is getting crowded" funny to hear it from someone who, unlike Sakusa, loved crowds.  
  
He greeted him with a smile, but Sakusa's eyes were on Atsumu.  
  
"Is he okay?" he asked, pointing at him with his chin.  
  
"He didn’t look too good just now, but I think he’s okay"  
  
"Is he sick?"  
  
"Nah"  
  
Sakusa blinked. Bokuto looked in his lap and finally decided to stand up as gently as possible, delicately resting Atsumu’s head on a pillow.  
  
"I leave him to you, Omi-Omi" and he returned to his room.  
  
Atsumu didn't wake up.  
  
Sakusa sat down on the floor, leaning his back to the couch and looking at the other man.  
  
And his heart sank.  
  
Atsumu once told him he was used to people leaving, and Sakusa must have thought he was different. Yet he seemed to have forgotten about him lately, so preoccupied with his own problems and uncertainties.  
  
And Atsumu hadn't said anything, he had silently accepted the reality of Sakusa’s abandonment, as if he had expected it from the beginning.  
  
And it hurt to think he disappointed him like that.  
  
For some obscure and incomprehensible reason it hurt so much.  
  
It was ironic, the fact that at that moment there was no room for him on that couch. Really poetic.  
  
Atsumu’s face was finally calm, his long eyelashes generated small shadows under his eyelids, where you could see two dark circles, his hair was a disaster.  
  
Watching him broke his chest.  
  
Sakusa felt the inexplicable urge to cry.  
  
But he didn't. He just crouched next to him, drawing his legs to his torso and leaning his head on his knees, looking at Atsumu.  
  
And maybe he reached out to him, maybe he felt the need to caress his cheek and apologize. But he couldn’t, his fingers were moving away, he couldn’t touch him. He was afraid that if he did, he would wake up, and all he wanted was for Atsumu to get some rest, because he deserved it.  
  
Because Sakusa wanted to see him so relaxed even when he was awake. He wanted to take his hands when Atsumu couldn’t keep them still, he wanted to put his palm on his thigh when his leg kept shaking, and every time he bit his lower lip he wanted to-  
  
Atsumu’s eyes opened.  
  
Sakusa withdrew his hand as fast as he could.  
  
There was a pure glimmer in his irises. But it didn't last long. Because the moment Atsumu saw him all the light and innocence vanished from his expression.  
  
"Omi-kun? What are ya doing here?" He slowly blinked.  
  
Was it so strange for Atsumu to see Sakusa there?  
  
"I just got back"  
  
"Ah, I didn’t think ya would"  
  
"I read your messages"  
  
"Oh"  
  
"What happened?" Atsumu stood up until he was sitting on the couch. Sakusa sat down next to him.  
  
"Nothing"  
  
Sakusa didn't believe him.  
  
...  
  
Atsumu was tired of living in the breath he was holding.  
  
It was time to let it go.  
  
It was time to say goodbye.  
  
...  
  
"Tell me the truth"  
  
Atsumu bit his lip.  
  
Sakusa closed his eyes.  
  
He heard Atsumu exhale.  
  
Breathe in.  
  
"I like ya, Omi-kun"  
  
Sakusa opened his eyes.  
  
He felt suffocated.  
  
"Atsumu-  
  
"Don’t say it. I already know"  
  
Sakusa no longer remembered how to speak.  
  
"Can I ask ya only one thing?"  
  
Sakusa swallowed.  
  
Looked at him.  
  
Nodded.

  
Atsumu’s hand touched his face. And suddenly he was close, so close. Sakusa saw everything: the brown threads of his eyelashes, the almost imperceptible freckles on his nose, his slightly open lips less than two inches from his trembling ones.  
  
Sakusa didn’t know how to say no.  
  
He didn’t know how to say yes.  
  
He didn’t know what to do.  
  
Sakusa was made of glass and the slightest touch would break him.  
  
And Atsumu saw it.  
  
He observed everything.  
  
And he abandoned his mouth.  
  
His lips hovered upon his cheek. But what they left on the surface of the fragile sheet of ice that his skin had become was not a kiss.  
  
The ghost of a kiss.  
  
The spectre of what might have been.  
  
"I’m sorry" Atsumu whispered "I’m so sorry"  
  
Then he walked to his room.  
  
"What now?" Sakusa found the strength to ask his back.  
  
Atsumu turned around.  
  
His smile was sad.  
  
"Now we forget about it"  
  
The door closed.  
  
...  
  
There is a difference between silence and unspoken words floating in the air begging to be released from their painful limbo, shouting mute prayers of freedom.  
  
Atsumu and Sakusa were dancing on a bridge exactly halfway between the two, and the fog made it impossible to tell them apart.  
  
They had kept their promise: they had forgotten.  
  
But the halo of what had happened, or rather, that had not happened, hovered over both of them.  
  
Atsumu had begun to take it out on the volley balls, further increasing the power of his serves, his lips had become increasingly chapped, he had stopped spending part of his nights on the couch in the common room.  
  
Sakusa had started chewing the skin on the sides of his fingernails, and he hid it by wrapping his fingers with tape, although it often bothered him. The time he spent in the shower had gradually increased, his regular sleep schedule abandoned him.  
  
And the whole team noticed, but no one said anything.  
  
Not Hinata when, before going out for a morning run, found Sakusa dozing on the couch. Not Tomas when, just before leaving the gym, saw Atsumu bumping his head against a ball. Not Bokuto when he noticed that they had sat two seats away on the bus, both staring out the window with sad looks.  
  
Only Inunaki asked if there was something wrong. But their answer was negative.  
  
Everything was all right, wasn’t it?  
  
They had said goodbye.  
  
It shouldn’t have hurt.  
  
Not like that. Not so much as to tear Sakusa’s chest every time he tried to breathe.  
  
Every now and then he would jerk awake in the middle of the night. He would stand up and go into the bathroom, crawling his feet on the floor.  
  
Once he arrived in front of the sink he would lift his eyes to the mirror.  
  
The other Sakusa was never in a better condition than he was. His skin was white and pale, giving the impression that, if someone had extended an arm towards him, it could have gone through him. His eyes were tired and reddish and were framed by purple circles that each day seemed deeper, more marked.  
  
And he happened to raise his hand, lay his fingertips on the exact spot where Atsumu’s lips had never touched.  
  
And he let the chills paralyze him.  
  
He breathed in.  
  
Breathed out.  
  
Again.  
  
And again.  
  
And again.  
  
He felt the rough caress of his chewed skin, the tremor of his mouth, the sweat that stuck the locks of his hair on his forehead.  
  
And he'd wrap his arms around his own body, he'd hug himself as tightly as he could, and he'd let the tears walk down his cheeks silently.  
  
Why was it so painful?  
  
Sakusa had thought that-  
  
And Ushijima? Although he knew nothing, Sakusa imagined that he owed him an explanation. It shouldn’t have been difficult.  
  
_You know, Atsumu told me that he likes me and he almost kissed me, but don’t worry, Wakatoshi-kun, 'cause I don’t care about his stupid feelings hahah_  
  
If only it was true.  
  
Sakusa cared about Atsumu. He cared about his stupid feelings. He didn’t want whatever was (had been?) between them to remain an unfinished book on his shelf, a song that is interrupted just before the chorus, a line that runs and runs and suddenly breaks.  
  
He hated to leave things done halfway.  
  
Sakusa was lost and had lost something that made him feel good.  
  
Atsumu made him feel good.  
  
Maybe he had been wrong about Ushijima, maybe he had been wrong about everything.  
  
Perhaps what he had believed a feeling more mysterious of life itself was nothing more than the fire that their rivalry had kindled in him.  
  
Maybe Atsumu’s non-kiss had made Sakusa’s heart beat faster than Ushijima’s actual kiss.  
  
  
Perhaps during those nights he closed his eyes and imagined a universe in which Atsumu’s lips collided with his skin, in which Sakusa’s hands could roam lazily through his hair without any embarrassment between them, in which lying on the same bed was… normal.  
  
It was all a mess. And Sakusa hated it.  
  
But he didn’t know how to fix it, feelings don’t follow the logical rules he was so fond of, they don’t know what order is.  
  
They are made of shiny eyes and trembling hands and missed breaths.  
  
Of impetuous waves and light rain and stubborn snow.  
  
Of dissonant notes and bittersweet flavors and complementary colors.  
  
And there was no way to control them.  
  
But they could control you.  
  
_Why Atsumu-_  
  
What was there to like about Atsumu?  
  
What was there to love about Atsumu?  
  
Was it the diligence and care he put into his every single toss? Was it the genuine smile that was so easy to see on his face in the late hours of the night? Was it the way he curled up on the couch, as if he wanted to occupy as little space as possible?  
  
Or was it his silences?  
  
His silences…  
  
Atsumu was a quiet person.  
  
And he loved quietly.  
  
And his love had went unheard.  
  
...  
  
The next day there would be no practice.  
  
This meant Sakusa had all night to get depressed in peace.  
  
It was about five o'clock and, according to what had become his new routine, he couldn’t sleep. So he decided to prepare himself something warm and maybe watch some TV.  
  
He opened the door at the same time Atsumu did.  
  
The gaze they shared annihilated the passing of time between them.  
  
Who knows how long they remained crystallized in that moment.  
  
Atsumu walked towards the kitchen and Sakusa followed him.  
  
But Atsumu didn't stop. On the contrary, he went to the entrance, as if he were going out.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
Atsumu stared at him as if he was wondering whether or not to reveal it.  
  
"On the terrace"  
  
Sakusa had forgotten that their dormitory had one.  
  
He nodded.  
  
Atsumu turned around and left.  
  
Sakusa brought a hand to his head.  
  
It had started throbbing.  
  
This could be his chance to put his life in order. Or perhaps to worsen the mess it already was. But Sakusa didn’t care anymore.  
  
He thought about it and realized that he wanted to talk to Atsumu. He wanted to tell him the truth, he wanted to tell him that-  
  
He went to the stove, put the water to boil and took two mugs out of the cupboard.  
  
Meanwhile he tried to prepare a speech that made sense, but nothing seemed to have it. Not since he and Atsumu had stopped talking.  
  
Sakusa’s heart wanted something his head didn’t know how to want. And that terrified him. This war against himself was tearing him apart.  
  
He was looking for a beacon, a signal, a memory.  
  
There must have been a moment when the wheel had turned, the night had become clearer, it had become morning, Miya had become Atsumu.  
  
And he tried so hard to find it and he couldn’t-  
  
He didn’t-  
  
He wasn’t capable of-  
  
Sakusa started to climb the stairs. Each step bringing him closer and closer to the solution. Or infinitely further.  
  
Would Atsumu accept him?  
  
As soon as he went out on the terrace he noticed that the other was leaning against the railing, giving him his back.  
  
He walked towards him in small steps, as if he wanted to make as little noise as possible. Perhaps if Atsumu didn’t notice him, he could still escape before reaching him. Before it was too late to go back.  
  
"Why didja come?" He could barely grasp that question because of the breeze blowing in his ears.  
  
"I needed it" Sakusa replied.  
  
They were words that belonged to another conversation, to another place, to other people.  
  
But the sky was always the same. That night on the beach it had had the colors of a sunset, a perfect amalgam of yellow and orange and red. And then it had turned dark, a blue so thick it looked black. Now the brushstrokes were the ones you could see before dawn, a new beginning, they were hopeful and contained every shade of light violet that Sakusa knew, especially those small lilac strokes that he could see on the horizon.  
  
There was still the spectre of some star scattered here and there.  
  
"I brought you something to drink" he said because Atsumu had not yet turned around and couldn't know.  
  
He saw him looking at the mug full of fennel tea as if Sakusa was holding an unknown creature.  
  
He was careful not to touch his fingers when he took it.  
  
"Thank you"  
  
"You're welcome"  
  
Atsumu’s gaze left him. Sakusa stood one meter to his left.  
  
And he took time to observe his straight nose, his brown eyes lost beyond the confines of the world, his dyed blond hair that was beginning to lose its color.  
  
And he wanted to know when when when had it happened?  
  
He tried to relive every moment: Sakusa lending him his face cream, Atsumu’s hands closing around the jar as if it were a treasure; the setter asking for a high-five after a good spike, the smile that illuminated his face when Sakusa humored him; his attentive eyes when he wrapped the wing spiker’s fingers; the zip up hoodie that Atsumu lent him on the beach, the same hoodie that Sakusa had meticulously washed before returning it; the nights spent playing with their Wii, bringing out all their competitiveness.  
  
He began to wonder if there was a precise moment or if the answer he was looking for was fragmented into so many tiny pieces of time.  
  
He took a sip of his chamomile tea.  
  
"Wakatoshi-kun and I broke up"  
  
Atsumu brought the mug to his mouth too.  
  
"I’m sorry"  
  
Silence.  
  
"I broke up with him"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Okay"  
  
Silence.  
  
Sakusa felt like an out of tune violin, able to emit only strident notes. He had no idea what to say, and even if he had, he wouldn’t know how to express it, what words to use.  
  
He didn’t even understand himself, how could he make Atsumu understand?  
  
"Why did you come up here?" Sakusa asked.  
  
The morning wind was blowing.  
  
A train whistled in the distance.  
  
"It feels good"  
  
Birds chirped on the branches of the trees.  
  
Lampposts were still lit.  
  
"What?"  
  
Cars moved idly.  
  
Windows were being opened.  
  
"Breathing"  
  
The distant sea murmured. Reminding him of another day when the same light breeze had whispered sincere words in his ear.  
  
"I need to ask you something. It’s stupid, you don’t have to answer"  
  
"Lemme decide"  
  
"How did you know you liked me?"  
  
_Liked. Imperfect._  
  
The sun rose beyond the line that separates the realm of shadow and that of light.  
  
"Because it was much easier to breathe if ya were there"  
  
_It was. Imperfect.  
  
_  
The horizon was tinged with fire and flames.  
  
Sakusa shattered.  
  
And his sharp pieces kept hitting and scratching and wounding each other during the fall.  
  
"Omi-kun"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"It’s not stupid"  
  
Sakusa nodded, bringing his mug to his chest.  
  
"Then I have another question"  
  
Atsumu made a movement, inviting him to continue.  
  
"Do you come here often?"  
  
Atsumu interrupted himself in the middle of the sip he was taking to laugh.  
  
"Are ya really hitting on me? What is it, are ya afraid ya might actually fall for me?"  
  
Sakusa had already fallen.  
  
But falling for Miya Atsumu had been so natural that it was not even definable 'falling'.  
  
"Yes" he admitted.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Yes" Sakusa confirmed.  
  
"Yes" Atsumu smiled.  
  
Then he brought his free hand to his mouth, as if to hide it.  
  
And Sakusa smiled back at him.  
  
Atsumu was right. It felt good to breathe up there.  
  
...  
  
The next night they met on the couch, and the one after that, and three days later, and so on.  
  
And everything was lighter.  
  
The dark circles disappeared, the tension gradually became a distant memory, neither of them was a sad smile on the other’s face anymore.  
  
And they talked, or they watched TV, or they played Wii (continuing to complain that there was no volleyball in Wii Sports).  
  
And every now and then one of the two distracted himself with his phone and the other gave him a sneaky look.  
  
Some days they preferred silence.  
  
The same silence that had brought them together, that had listened to them, that knew all their stories and their lies and their secrets.  
  
The exact time they went to practice, the food they liked the most, their favorite programs.  
  
The way they both cried, their throats closed, but also the reason of their every laugh.  
  
The same silence that had followed them into the gym, on the beach, on the terrace.  
  
That had heard them when Sakusa had asked "'Tsumu… Where do you like to be kissed?"  
  
And Atsumu answered "I don’t know, Omi. Find out"  
  
And had seen them exploring their bodies as if they were something divine.  
  
The same silence that knew exactly how their hands intertwined, how their lips met, how Atsumu’s head rested on Sakusa’s legs, and how Sakusa’s fingers gently stroked his hair while he slept.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm still trying to understand if I'm proud of this fic or not. I mean, I experimented with something new and I don't know if I succeeded or failed miserably lmao (if I failed please pretend this never existed).  
> BTW thank you so much for reading this and if you have any comment, feel free to scream at me here or on twitter (@nonlovso)


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